


"My Enemy." "My Ally."

by MyDaedricGravemind



Category: Halo 5 Guardians, Post Halo 5/Aftermath/Alternate ending
Genre: A helping hand...somthing more?, Brief Language, Brief Violence, But Spartans never surrender..., Chief does not want what Locke wants to give him, Chief is driven against the wall, Chief wants to give up, Chief without armor, Consolation, Dark Thoughts, Guilt, Locke in armor, Locke is persistant, Longing, M/M, Regret, Resolving Misunderstandings, Self Aware, Struggles With Emotion And SelfControl, THIS WORK IS NOT ABANDONED, Unwanted Compassion, Unwanted Sympathy, Unwanted Understanding, breakdowns, hopelessness, resolutions, seclusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 10:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6150293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyDaedricGravemind/pseuds/MyDaedricGravemind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John steadied his breath and willed himself to think of nothing and to be nothing-that way they would get nothing out of him.</p>
<p>"You havent even taken anything to drink in over 5 days-you need to sustain yourself."</p>
<p>Chief strove to remain inhert, taking nothing he said to heart. He meant nothing.</p>
<p>Locke wasn't letting a long silence fall between them and continued to speak and question. Would they ever stop?</p>
<p>"..Do you wanna talk about what's all on your mind?"</p>
<p>He didn't answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. End of Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EatSnowAndDie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EatSnowAndDie/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did not play Halo 5 yet, having only seen a few glimpsed cutscenes and heard a rough plot outline I couldn't wait...*X}*
> 
> All contained is to be considered an AU of a sort but I hope you enjoy:)

 

-O-

 

_He had failed_.

Himself, his team, humanity- nothing could justify the ultimatum of his failure...and in the white and hollow face of it all he had locked up.

Gone dark- AWOL. It hadn't seemed to matter as they had found him, then caught and caged him like an ferel animal then left him to himself, alone.

Inside he had felt nothing; cold and dead as if he were a skin of suit and armour and nothing else. A husk of a man, as if there was never anything else inside, as if he had been lying to himself whenever he had tryed to see anything different. How they had _all lied to_ _him._ Even Cortana-

- **No.**

His head pulled to the side sharply-freezing that dangerous thought- trying to keep his mind and thoughts blank. The chamber of his instinct, that connects his thoughts with his actions, empty. As if one wrong move would pull that trigger...

It would somday, he knew, and in the event of the day it did- he wanted the only consequence to be a solid _click_ and not a **BANG**.

Chief with weary exhaustion carved into his straining features, held a long deep breath and tryed to sooth himself into standby. To inaction-but it was impossible.

To do nothing.

His mind kept trying to digest things-everything that had happened since he had awoken to the truth of his state and true purpose. True capabilitys and new responsibility...dare he say loyalty? He didnt know.

Trying to decypher the knotted cords of feelings and thoughts; the frozen flashes of iron urge and instinct that he called himself -that _they_ had built him into- his vision shot black, he tasted blood flavored bile, and his heart expanding and contracting _hard_ with almost conscious efforts, ready and waiting to explode him into furious action...

He gripped his fists till they creaked, flushing pale and bloodless; the strength of his pain of 40 years of supression and emotional manipulation. 40 years of blind obedience to a corrupt and universel power he didn't know had enslaved him. 40 years fighting for a pure humanity that was in reality only an idea drove into his head- nearly non existant once he dared to open his eyes. 40 crushing years of regret and grief that drown him, crushing him breathless with it's volume and strength.

He could still see and hear every voice that had ever told him he what to be and what he was, as clear as the day they had first uttered it. Never trusting him to know and understand himself, he was forged through hell's fire and carved by cold discipline into humanity's single greatest acheivment and protecter; the only thing that could boldface challenge milenea year old gods in all their power and walk away without a scratch.

Any sane person-any _grateful_ person-would see that as a miracle.

_Humanity_ saw that as a threat.

The Chief swallowed the lancing ache rift inside that his own had wounded him with, the betrayal of trust for a man who has _nothing_ and gave _everything_ , for everyone. To be in turn spit in the face; to be told he was _too ready_ and _too able_ to be trusted, was crippling to everything he was...

But the truth of how he felt about it, how he was actually relieved that the slaving responsability he had ever known was now lifted,  
broke the final shackle inside him that had been holding him back from truly doing what was right. It was a Godsend and a mercy...he was finally free-

His _will,_ that is. His body itself had been detained under force and now awaiting their judgements.

Here in this place without his weapons and armor, singled away from his team and any contact, he knew they were trying to break him. While he scoffed sickly inside, his iron expression didn't flex a single centimeter. _It was impossible. Didn't they know he was already broken?_

He calmed at the thought, how they were never going to gain an inch more over him.

There was nothing left to take away because he owned nothing, held nothing and even to himself- _was nothing_. Even his team didnt know what he knew or saw what he had seen, they came because he had called. He hadn't had time to explain to them, to show them what he had known and how they needed to overcome every lie...He hadn't had the right words, he had hoped they would have worked it through like he had and come to the same realizations...

_Was that too much to ask of them in the end?_

Chief's forehead lines deepened into furrows as he realized just how different he was now, had always been without knowing. They followed out of due respect, not understanding what he was trying to save them from. They hadn't questioned him, only followed-debating the most questionalble of his means or intentions but otherwise obeyed. Like they had been taught to.  
In the end they hadnt been through what he had, hadnt suffered what he had and didnt know what he knew. It broke another piece deep inside him to accept that- how only _they_ could save themselves now. Linda. Kelly. Fred. He could save everything and everyone but not them-his brother. Sisters- not even Cortana- it seemed for the ones he cared about the most he was even less then powerless...

_"As all who have born the burdan of time and lived long enough to be undone by the same-"_ The voice of the UrDidact mourned deep in his thoughts. _"- all have come to realize this. You are no different, warrior."_

Chief didnt respond-he never did- he just froze those thoughts like the rest, pushing them back, deep into the wild recesses of his mind, resolving not to dwell any longer on them.

_"..Hiding. You can run from the truth for only so long, reclaimer. And in the end, it is the fools gambit."_

Chief lowered himself to the shielded floor, pressing his hot hands firmly onto the cool crackling surface, holding another long breath.

_Breathe_. He pushed up. Held. Lowered. Held. Pushed. Held. Lowered. Breathe...

 

-O-

 

Locke entered casualy, clad in his charcoal grey armor without his helmet. His tone was nuetrel as he addressed him again.

"Hello again, John."

Chief stood stiff, his eyes fixed out of the shield left shoulder facing the intruder.

"I asked you not to call me that-"

"I remember. And I said I wasnt going to call you by a rank you no longer hold."

The Chief's eyes narrowed.

"You may use the _number_ they gave me then, _sir_."

"I told you J-"

He cut him off, turning ever so slightly in the agent's direction.

"-If you _dont..._ we're _done_ _talking_."

He voice was barely guarded, low and deadly.

Locke didnt respond he just looked down, half nodding to himself as he paced a few steps further into the shielded cubicle that held  
the rogue exSpartan. His hands hung on to his belt as he carefully contimplated his words before he spoke them. Chief's eyes and ears honed in to every motion and sound as he stood ready but rigid; unmoving.

_Why was he here? Detained like this. What more did they want from him?_   A hundred questions with no answers and as much as they ground at his patience, the Chief remained silent.

_"A pity you never finished your mutations."_ The Didact mused. _"Your predicament may not be so predictably hopeless. Then again I assume your unchallenged fortune will see you doubtlessly through..."_ The Forerunner scoffed at the Chief's legendary luck but underneath John could feel his reluctant admiration and respect for such an adversary. John didn't let that distract him from his own adversary prowling his cell...

Locke paused then, having paced behind the Chief's right shoulder, still mantaining a rough three meters distance between them.

_Good._

"Can we talk about it?"

_Breath_. He said nothing.

Locke sighed as if he pityed him, starting.

"..ONI is not humanity, and niether is the same opposite. You can't blame everyone for your situation and bad luck, there is no one to blame for it directly except for Halsey herself and Mendez, and even they have taken steps to right wrongs. Why haven't you? Even Cortana knew what they had done-all of it- and still chose to say and do nothing-"

Chief's blood boiled at his detracting words, his all ready rigid stance solidifying as if his will and discipline could contain his sick disgust for ONI -with all their secrets and crimes against decency and humanity- indefinatly. The rage of injustice. The agent however, continuing without pause.

"-she rathered you live protected, even in the shallow shelter of your own world then to risk you doing exactly what you are doing. What you've now done..."

He left it open to argue, knowing full well how the Chief _burned_ to-

But he didn't. He remained silent though unable to contain the raging tremors gripping his taut shoulders, coarsing cold up his spine and aching deep where she used to be.

_Lies._.

Locke calmly turned and paced back the way he came, slowly, his steps measured. Every step was a point, a knell in Chief's hollow skull, echoing the words around till they found a place in an unguarded crevice he had tiredly overlooked. To sicken and spoil inside him till he rot from the inside out and became his own enemy...

_"Tame your thoughts, warrior. You are fulfilling his foul work for him..."_

John heard nothing but the drowning beat of his wrenching heart, the Didact's words too late to help him, he would listen to no one.  
He heard Locke pause again, and he unknowingly braced for the sound of his voice...

"Why would you do it? Why would you turn from everything you had ever known?"

_He was really trying to convince him to believe he actually cared. Just breathe._ It was getting harder to control, his vision was tunneling as he horrifyingly watched the events of the Absolute Record over again...

_Why??_

His fists creaked and tremored at his sides, his breath heaving- increasing in tempo with the speed of his rabid thoughts-he  
couldn't control them-

_Why would she turn after everything he had done for her-that they had done together? She was his only everything? Why??_  
Locke sounded concerned, cautious...he spoke his name gently.

"John..?"

" _I told you **not to call me that**_..."

_"Warrior. Contain yourself!"_

John didn't see the personal outside the containment hurriedly gesture at Locke who denied them, gesturing for them to stand down. His eyes never leaving the back of the Chief...

"Alright, alright-"

His voice was niether frightened nor angry, blameless.

"-I won't agian, I promise."

He really was fine with anything John did and would not punish or threaten him for anything...It was completly disarming and John knew he knew that, and used it as a weapon against him but at the same time he couldn't fight it. He couldn't see it, couldn't evade it, he couldn't endure it even-

He just couldn't take any of it for much longer... _  
_

John rasped, his voice crackling plasma.

" _GET. OUT, sir._....."

It was a desparate demand, from a tortured animal on the last of the edge.

Again unnerving him, the agent wisely retreated, without another word or sound of complaint.

And John was alone again, as if the other had never been...the sudden retreat had left him as he had wanted but at the same time in want.

_Of what?_

The lights would then ebb low and soft. It was time for him to sleep.

 

-O-

 

 


	2. This Heart That's Driving Me

 

-O-

 

"You asked to see me, Admiral?"

Locke came to attention before the projecter.

Osman nodded a brief greeting, her taut features as non descript as always, she ignored the costomery pleasantries and got to the point directly.

"What ground have you gained-exactly-with _Sierra?"_

She was keeping any feelings she had on John's betrayal-a fellow Spartan II- locked down on ice and Locke expected nothing else.

All the Spartans were fragmented and chipping apart, soon there would be nothing-no pieces-to pick up because they were all going to explode under the pressure and duress. But not if he could figure out why and find out how to how to stop it... First, he had to understand the source of it all-and that meant that he had to get _inside_ 117 before it was too late...

"Nothing conclusive, ma'am. It's slow and there is very little he is willing to show-"

"-I've seen the footage."

"He's broken-and has nothing to hold to. No allegiences, no loyalties, inside and out he is waiting to blow-and if I'm not careful and push for things too soon-"

"I understand your peramiters, Agent, but you understand my deadlines."

"I do."

"Then we do we understand each other and how we need to get _somewhere-soon_?"

"I think we do, ma'am."

"Then stop sitting on your hands. That's how this whole mess got off the ground in the first place and I'll be damned if I repeat history a second time."

He nods and crisply salutes. "Yes, Ma'am." 

She nods before the moniter blips off, leaving Locke to ponder and hope-

John was going to cooperate with him-he had to...

His own survival depended on it and he couldn't count on luck to save him this time...

 

-O-

 

John's sleep was sporatic, his nights long and his body winding tighter and finer with every try. His eyelids closed but his mind was raw, refusing to rest. He was aware and sharply attuned to every movment on the outside, as personal changed shifts and gossiped about his latest movments or actions. He could hear them through the shielding-his senses sharper then they could understand-and everything they talked about, was him.

Chief heard them speak of him with fear and distrust, with anger and misunderstanding but the one that _bothered_ him most-what got under his callused layer of skin was when they spoke of him with _pity_.

He turned away from them, their voices and their false oppinions-they were all trying to get in his head but he swore they were never going to gain another inch. The realazation fell into place like the piece of a missing puzzle and so he commited himself to it. He turned his back to the rest of humanity, knowing he could no longer help them, and instantly inside he was again horrifyingly at peace with his decision-yet in the same breath he wondered what did that make him then? He wasn't Forerunner. And he wasn't human anymore. 

He was no longer a Spartan and he wasnt a soldier...

So what was he?

_"A disembodied element, an essence adrift between the natural order or creation. You are somthing otherwise intended for an elusive destiny; a fault of man and yet the very thing that may drive the definitive point of change in this galaxy's generation..."_

The Warrior-Servant's foresight into time was no comfort to him now. Here. The Chief grew almost irritable with his preachings; he sounded like a mad man raving out of his time-

_"-And perhaps I am. You forget, reclaimer, that I once was the greatest power in the universe. That I held the fate of whole species in the simple grasp of my hand-and at my word they could be struck from existance. They were-your humans were devolved to a primative state deemed safe for their own survival...it would seem that your kind have a deliberate talent for selfdistruction."_

As if the Forerunners themselves didnt-the parrellals of their species were darkly humorous-how humans and Forerunners held such similiar fates and destinys and now the one to accuse the other of self destruction was the one who was the only surviving member of his own race...

Or had been the last. 

_"Perhaps so. Our kinds are more akin then I will admit and that may be because you are ment to tread our path upon the galaxy-but do you then wish also to fall after our mistakes? To commit the very sins that drove us to extinction? Or are you claiming that you can cross the fires-submit to the Trials and walk after unscathed...? Arrogance is the most grand of all geniologic human failings..."_

The Chief turned his attention away from his voice as he saw the Agent-Jameson Locke-stride through the level's double blast doors and with a casual nod begin his debrief of the latest Marines on watch.

His stomach clenched with instincual preperation, his body pumping and fueling itself with energy and adrenaline for a fight that his body couldn't participate in. It had to stand on the sidelines as his mind and heart fought unarmed.

But that wasn't anything he hadn't done before.

His sharp eyes were tense, acutely piercing through the agent's posture and body language. He read his every motion and movment, digesting it and gathering any knowlege he could glean from the exchange. 

And he knew the agent knew he was.

The agent spoke with a level and care and kept his composure cool and nondescript. He didn't want the exSpartan to hear just what he was saying and mouthed the words at a difficult angle to the Marine who spoke for the watch. His face revealed nothing of the exchange, his expression stoic and centered before he turned and approached the shielded door at a easy saunter. The entry had a double entry which allouded Chief no means to escape, which was why he waited, there was always an opertunity and he would wait patiently for it. Just because it wasn't going to be easy hardly meant it was impossible...the catch was, he had to find the oppertunity before he lost what little was left of his control.

The Chief stood himself against the opposite side of the shielded cell, keeping the agent in his sight but otherwise ignoring him.

There was nothing he had to him and nothing that the agent had to say that he wanted to hear-his words constant and grinding on his peace of mind-however frail-and what little composure he had left. His containment was quickly eroeding it... 

They both knew he wasnt going to last long and so the agent wasted no time.

"You havent eaten..."

Chief steadied his breath and willed himself to think of nothing and to be nothing-that way they would get nothing out of him.

"You havent even taken anything to drink in over 5 days-you _need_ to sustain yourself."

Chief strove to remain inhert, taking nothing he said to heart. He meant nothing.

Locke wasn't letting a long silence fall between them and continued to speak and question.

_Would they ever stop?_

"..Do you wanna talk about what's all on your mind?"

He didn't answer.

"I know you're trying to make a point-"

Chief hard voice grated an interuption. "-What do you _want_ from me, _sir?"_

Locke thought carefully before every answer, he treated John with an almost gentle caution, always contiencious of how he was going to react...

"I know you don't accept me as one of your own but a Spartan is a Spartan to me-"

"You- _are not a Spartan_." 

That religiously deep thread-his very integrity-blared how blasphamasly wrong that statement was. And no matter how _hard_ they all pushed for that to be made truth it didnt matter. He would never accept it.

_Never._

"Why..?" 

The question was genuinly curious but the agent must think him an idiot if he didnt think he would catch the fishing hook of the question. They wanted to know because they were trying to get into his head.

So he only repeated himself. "What do you _want from me?"_

Locke stepped closer, a mere meter from his adversary. 

"I wanna help you."

Chief's tone darkened with suspicion. 

_"Why?"_

"Because you dont have anyone-"

Chief's posture clenched with rigid tension. 

"-I...have _my team_ -"

"-No. You dont." Locke let that sink in before he added.

"They aren't like you, no one is, and you can't keep pretending like that isn't anymore."

Chief turned away and stared out the shield, blood boiling with riling disrespect of his words...

"This isn't your own reality anymore-"

 ** _That_** pulled a trigger in his head-Chief whirled on Locke with an alien speed and ferocity-and with two crisp steps had him pinned  hard to the shielded wall with his forearm crushed against his throat.

 _"Tread with care, reclaimer..."_ The Didact's voice seemed wary of where this action may lead their joined fates but the Chief hissed through bared teeth, tremors gripping his shoulders and running their cold fingers up the length of his cold, clenching torso. Damn the consiquences.

"- _ **What** , do you people, want from me_.." He was _so sick_ of the lies and the secrets-he just wanted to be left alone- after _**all** he had _ _done-_ they couldnt even give that to him...His throat was burning as if he had vomited and his chest was crushed with exhaustion and grief. **_Why couldn't they leave him alone..._**

Locke swallowed against the iron muscles imobilizing him but kept himself at ease and unthreatening. His own guarded, searching brown eyes met the dying stars of John's dead blue, whose soul was searching for an end that would never come, hoping a false and fleeting hope-needing somthing so desparatly and after a lifetime looking- finding nothing. Hoplessly lost with nothing to hold on to any longer, no reason to live; so why did he even fight on anymore?

"It's not about what they want-" Locke dared it. "-John, its about what _you need_ -"

Chief's forearm slammed Locke hard, cutting him off and driving his wieght closer. 

"Stop it-just- _stop it **all**_..." 

He didn't know what else to say, so sick with disgust and fear-how else could he convert his twisted emotions and thoughts-the buried feelings churning and _burning_ inside him for so long-to words...and how can they expect him to give and account-to explain or even defend himself?? 

They didn't. They _knew_ he couldn't and were just twisting him up inside even more. Destroying him from the inside out-because he was indestructable from the outside in...

His eyes smoldered with hell's fire, _daring_ the agent to speak.

Locke's eyes gazed into his with a fearful desire to understand him...they were soft and angled to deflect the fury he was directing at him, leaving him to brokenly stare back. 

_Blue and brown._

"I just..."

Locke took a slow, deep armoured breath that flexed against Chief's augmented ribcage. 

"..I just want to _understand_."

 

-O- 

 

 


	3. Falling Apart Within

 

-O-

 

His body was starved and strained, too long pressed to a ledge too steep...

And he was slipping over the edge with nothing to stand between him and the inevitable end.

_"I just-I just want to understand..."_

John dropped his arm from Locke's throat and stiffly turned away, those words _tempting_ , ** _unwanted_** , inside his ears and John stalked to the other end of his confinement- _away from the agent_ \- then a single crushing fist he **pounded** against the wall of the pulsing force field, it's shield fluttering under the strength of his agony; singular and focused, as he ever was. Locke the solitary witness to this silent, tortured confession-a statement without words.

 

Locke didn't address the aching pain John had shared with him. He knew that he had needed somthing from him and that was his way of speaking without words-he spoke without a language-but Locke understood. And he didn't leave John this time but stood resolute, only firmed his armored footing, fearing for a moment he had pushed the exSpartan too far.

 

John's body stood like a collossal Guardian; still and motionless as the hollowed protecters had, before they had awoken. Unseen were his insides-churning and tearing him apart inside as he forced his trembling mass to contain it all. He ached to think that he may not be able to win this fight-but a Spartan **never** gave up the fight-

But then again the fight had never been inside the Spartan before.

John wanted to destroy _everything;_ in the blinding haze and ruin that was consuming him-because **everything was out of his control.**

His body fought to obey him but it struggled, feeding on his will alone. He hadn't eaten anything they brought him, not through stubborn pride but rather a forced indifference. Ever since the Librarian's influence his body had begun to grow and change in strange, alien ways. His body was stronger and thourghly intergrated with an dead Forerunner's DNA-it ached and throbbed with a new and foreign life, aching and creaking with new mass and density. He heard voices and shared scattered thoughts that were not his own-and the more pronounced they became, he realized, that it wasnt that they _weren't_ _his_ thoughts....they just weren't his _yet_.

Another tremor rippled through his stinging body; he was changing into somthing that Fate had decided a millenea ago-becoming something and growing into that imprinted image he did not recognize and had no say in. He wondered, wretchedly, at what point he would ever be in control of himself...

And his own destiny.

_Was that somthing he would never know?_

His clenched fists cracked painfully loud, throbbing as his crushing grip on sanity tore the tendons in his own hands.

Locke then eased towards him, moved at a reduced speed, unnaturally slow and measured as he approached the Man from an angle which he could watch and see him from. The agent wanted him to know he was coming...

 

 _Was he going to just_ _l_ _et him?_

The deep, twisting viens crawled deadly across John's furrowed temple, kinking sharply as his dead eyes bore back and into his blurred reflection and Locke in it, his frozen breath now dragging itself coldly into and out of him; fueling the inferno of his desparate rage...

 _They_ - _weren't going to touch him_. **Never again.**

Locke observing everything saw the desparate transformation; the exSpartan was a cornered lone wolf with no way out and nothing to hold itself back, having no fear. Even of self preservation-

 

John watched the agent freeze in his steps and after a single moment-

Turn away from him.

The molton turmoil inside him sharply twisted-and instead of exploding into his dying desire of violence, an end- it cooled into a sudden, cold and dangerous suspicion that briefly halted the rage that had _almost found release.._

The agent paid him no mind and instead walked with sensitive care over to the the sister wall of John's containment; right shoulder facing the Chief while he gazed out into the room within a room that held both of their thoughts and actions in suspense.

The agent's brown eyes, John saw through the reflection, were looking into his own thoughts from afar as he pondered the silence and static tension in their breathing air.

The he spoke.

"...Man is never gonna come to realize the faults of their mistakes- nor the gravity of the consiquences. People will always seek justification for their sins and will then give them the power and authority to commit even greater crimes under the banner, "for the good of humanity"..."

 

John watched him from the safty of his reflection but even though he braced for it, the agent didn't achknowledge his eyes. He only took the attention of his continued silence, and so he continued. His voice calm and respecting.

 

"..No one wants to admit that or even hear about it because it is inside each of us; a form of psychological shielding. We tell ourself _its alright_ or _we're fine,_ so that we dont have to suffer the guilt or fear of being wrong-"

The agent shifted straighter swallowing past the developing bruising of his throat.

" -It is somthing leaders have to condition themselves against and even then it is known to fail. Why? Because Man is not perfect and will never be-no matter how we manage to evolve ourselves, John. There will always be war, suffering, death...and nothing in the entire universe will ever change that. Nothing..."

John's eyes bore into Locke's averted gaze from the glass, his crippled soul drinking in the words. He didn't _want_ to listen-he wanted to fight it-but like an drowned man just dragged from the ocean, he could only lay there exhausted, taking it in-because he had no way and nothing to fight back with.

He had nothing.

All the UNSC and the Office of Navel Intelligence had ever done was cover up faults with lies and paint over the blood with new paint and ink, as if nothing had ever been in the first place. His new critizisms and revelations were like dripping newborns; tender and fragile even in his own mind. So when Locke stood there, at his side, and disarmedly put to words his gripping infant pain and in agreement with his better instincts- _his heart and soul_ -John realized he _wanted_ to hear it. He wanted to listen...because what little this was, was truth-

And anything was better then the _lies_.

 

 

Locke looked onto his own soul and spoke to his fellow man, trying to guide him from darkness and seek him out. He could feel the critical judgment of the Chief and kept his eyes focused forward. His right shoulder, unthreatening, faced the Chief's left, a meter's distance away and so the right angled corner that divided them reflected their images and so they could look at each other without turning a head.

He knew that John was watching him, he wanted him to. He knew he could too with the easy flick of an eye-but he didn't. He waited.

The Spartan didn't want that from him...not yet.

 

 

-O-

 

Her voice was cold and dangerous, Locke knew he crossed a line.

"I hope you _understand_ what you are doing, Lieutenant Commander- because what you were just _conversing_ on, could be understood as a form of treason to the wrong pair of ears."

Locke stood at attention before the Admiral, she was acutely pointed in how she wanted this handled but then she was a Spartan II herself and so he knew her judgments were always going to be tainted in one direction or another. And she was raised in the heart of the Office of Navel Intelligence...

_How painful it must be to take sides. Was it difficult for her or was she beyond such loyalties?_

_Was she beyond saving?_

He blinked calmly and thought carefully about every word, he always did before he opened his mouth. His father had rightly taught him.

"I understand, ma'am, but you have to see what I am doing and how I have to work this-"

"I _do_ understand, but you don't realize the pressure I am receiving on _my end._ You have _no idea_ what that entails..."

She was insinuating somthing quite dark with her tone and the way she held her face in a cruel mask of displeased amusment. As if it involved a certain suffering she didn't know whether to be pleased about or furious at.

Locke's brows slowly fell at the implications of his assessments.

"You're not saying-"

"I am saying _nothing_ , Lieutenant, and you should be grateful for that. It would only make your task more difficult then it already is-but we're wasting our time."

She leaned back and spoke the the right side of her screen where Locke knew she was consulting her personal AI, and he watched her stiff mask but she let nothing on. Now he had learned that what masks hide is often the secret to puzzling out the soul underneith...

It was a _dangerous_ game he was playing and the pieces were growing even more elaborate. He was going to tread _very_ carefully...

She returned to him a moment later and dismissed him curtly. He saluted and 'about-faced' but heard her address him once more.

"And, Agent?"

Locke turned.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Time-is _of the essence_ -."

Her gaze sharpened and then fell dull again; that look was familiar to him in the way she held so much in and let nothing out...

"-you _have_ to make him understand that.."

She could have said more-but she didn't.

Locke got the message and nodded a single nod of understanding.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then you are dismissed."

He saluted again and left.

He wondered if the two would ever even speak to each other. They were only two Spartans alive that had the faintest understanding as to how all this universe worked.

Were they even on the same side anymore?

Locke could only wonder...

 

-O-

 

 

John slowly lay his aching body down for the first time in three days, the compact issued mattress bruising his throbbing muscles with it's firmness and his new weight.

His body _ached_ for his next "mutation" as the Shadow of his thoughts educated him, but there were non alive who could give it to him. The Didact, held prisinor inside him had, at long length, discussed what was going on inside and outside of him and the progress his body and mind were making but John had grown to resent the confusing Forerunner meddling with himself and had tryed to silence the Warrior and his doctrines...

_"Perhaps you would consider a meditation as you lay to rest.."_

_No._

_"You do not understand that you cannot resist what is to come."_

_As long as the choice is mine. I will._

_"You humans...it is no wonder that the Primordials wished to devour the entirity of your seed-you are as blindly driven and hungry as they ever were. Descendents they would be proud to call their own..."_

John closed his eyes and began to breath in counts. How his body ached-

But he pushed it all- the pain, the conflictions, the drowning fatigue, the tearing thirst -into the most recluse corner of his concerns and strove to think of and be nothing.

He needed rest; he needed sleep even as his mind whispered and raced, anxious for what he continued to deny it.

The dead Forerunner had the last word of the night.

_"Had you been present in the last stand of the my people, Warrior, then perhaps we might have lasted against the Tide. All wisdom knows better though that it only would have postponed our present fates. In the end Time was always nothing..."_

John pushed himself into the realm of sleep and traveled into the dark nothing that was his dreams...

It was going to be a long night.

 

-O-

 

Locke watched _him_ lie down with such care and uncertainty. He hoped Osman hadn't thought to look into the readings, growing stronger, that his evolving body was emitting, and he prayed that she never would.

As John attempting to regain his sapping strength without outside means, Locke knew- that they both knew-that it wasn't going to cut it. Soon he would have to except food and drink-but that is where Locke believed Osman's _timeline_ lay...

She was waiting for him to break, in mind or body. Whichever first mattered little but he believed she prefered the latter...

For what then? God only knew-

That Locke wasn't going to be able to make the window in time...

 

-O-

 


	4. Dying to be Unbroken

 

 

-O-

 

Osman sat at her desk contemplating the future of humanity and her own strategies to ensure it's survival. In the wake of the Guardian crisis they had to further their evolutionary progression and looked to her for it's fulfilment. Many looked to technology-but any who lived long enough knew that knowledge and phyisical enhancment survived the long run.

She had monitered Sierra's bio readings and any audio output the first two weeks of his confinment religiously, but after nothing new had broke ground and seeing little progress, she left it to agent Locke to discover the rest while she dealt with the more _important_ details.

Humanity was becoming the most powerful race in the galaxy and everyone knew it. They were feared and challenged without pause and that ment that they were seen as a threat and a danger to defend against or remove. Humanity took pride in that image, it was painted with spilling its fair share of blood. And now with the continued infusions of Forerunner technology into humanity's fleets and subjecting and adapting their tech to human modifications and improvments was pressing Man into a new age. 

And with that, the demands were becomeing more difficult to keep tabs on, as for safty's sake, the Space Command demanded more intelligence and grander solutions to greater crisises.

...Then in the midst of all that, after the events of the Absolute Record, eyes finally turned to the reluctant hero of humanity; the former Master Chief who, with his seemingly invincible successes and undominated conquests over every alien agressor, had risen into the greater interests of humanity...meaning _what_ exactly?

It meant, that some members of the UNSC were growing _curious_ as to how _exactly_ he managed to do _all that-_ and _somehow_ remain undauntingly above the glassed ground...

Alive and unscathed-in body at least.

Osman had her suspicions and theories-having read his briefing file and post Reqium report-but she was receiving pressure to find more _tangible-_ more _substantial_ answers...and then find out if these answers were _capatable_ and _applyable_ to the rest of humanity as well...

Or at least the select few who could afford it.

Osman disagreed with the Security Counsel's ideas-they were a little before their time and technologies-and she believed it would drive them off track and back into a desparate frame of mind that justified the mutations of brainwashed kids for the greater of humanity..as if that had done the galaxy a damn thing-

_But when did humanity ever listen to reason? Progress, they cried, and by god, they would have it..._

She leaned back in her office chair which creaked from her augmented weight.

_But at what cost?_

 

-O-

 

Locke, once the exSpartan had settled into an uneasy stillness-only his eyelids moving and mashing shut at unseen things- exited the lockdown before he made his way slowly back to his own quarters.

On his way he passed through S deck, and contemplated everything he knew of John as the revolving mech removed his individual pieces of armor; feeling each weighted piece as it was peeled from the security of the whole, much like how he was trying to get the exSpartan to chip apart and expose himself...he understood how it was no easy thing.

Piece by piece he knew how he had little enough to protect him as it was already, without the agent stripping away the rest but it had to be done. He didn't understand Locke's reasons yet and how he had such little time...

Contemplating the future consequences, as he exited the machine, he watched the last pieces disappear into their places of confinement as every piece the UNSC owned, rested; contained in the same fate.  Whether living or machine...

_So why were they treating John-who had saved the galaxy on his own-as if he were a piece of defaulting equiptment instead of a soldier in need of understanding and help?_ Locke turned towards his quarter's working that question meticulously through his mind as his augmented feet carried him home.

His door opened as he neared, his pace uninterrupted where he entered and carefully sat at his report station to finish his file, almost ready to submit.

He took one last look at the sleeping Spartan from the small corner screen moniter connected to his personal station. He saw John as he had left him; even from the distance he was away from him, he could see the veins raised from his temples and the scowl of his forehead and jaw from the battle he fought in his dreams.

Locke leaned closer and whispered, his voice careful, eyebrows thick with attention and concern.

"..what are you dreaming about, John...what are you fighting inside...?"

But the Spartan didn't answer him, he didn't expect him to. His head only turned away from the moniter's direction-as if he knew what Locke wanted-and still refused to back down or give up the answer.

Locke shook his head almost sadly and closed the moniter off, leaving the Spartan to his shallow rest. He gave all his attention to his report, tiredly closed the station down then he laid himself down to rest; knowing he needed all he could get.

But as he lay there for a long time, he couldn't seem to come to ease with himself...

Somthing was wrong, he could feel it...

It was going to be a long night.

 

-O-

 

 His dreams flowed and ebbed like freezing water over his warm body, his tender nerves throbbing with sensations; his entire nervous system whispering messages to his brain and body that felt more like passing words to his flesh rather then actual physical feeling. Memories, dark and yawning, carried him through time and space, his body tensing and clenching as his mind raced through the life he knew as his own and all that had made him who he was. Every death and every life he had ever saved and taken, coursed through his delicate optic nerves and surged with images and sensations that attacked his brain with his painful past; carrying him down into living memory and delving into what he would rather have forgotten...and forcing him to remember.

John's mind, as he slept, was drown in memories of his own and birthing a turmult of others that ached with agelong regrets and ancient sorrow for things he couldn't even begun to try to understand.

_Fleets and armies of beings gathered without number before a falling sun-flashes of light so bright it scalded the grass of planets lightyears away-a thousand emotions, so profound and heartaching, that his eyes stung with a foriegn intensity, his throat grips with a sudden strength, he is struck with a shocking panic, having never felt anything like it before nor been immersed so helplessly in such a flood of-_

His body clenched in a cold, clutching sweat and he awoke to violent mourning whispers in his mind as they roamed inside him, tainting everything they touched. His razed mind churned hot then cold and the echoes of such visceral sensations dragged a subtle shaking breath from him.

_What was happening? Who was doing this?_

John lay there and tryed to gather himself and hold it all together. He knew what the result of the mutation was suppose to be, at least from what Cortana had spoken of and what the Didact had elaborated briefly on. Somthing about "the next stage" but he didn't understand the concept of " _imprinting_ " and how intimately it passed the thread of descent along from one-and united itself into the very fiber of the one who recieved it-copying itself to the other like a code until-with enough time-there could be no discerning from one and the other again...

He wasn't aware of the depth of the Librarian's meddling and how violently she had forced him deeper into-not only the unknown-but the inconcievable...Another rush along his central nervous system caused him to grind his teeth in silence.

The Forerunner inside him was silent the whole while as the Spartan struggled to withstand the changes. John could feel his repungance and bitter hate for what he himself did not yet understand; the Didact resented his human ignorance yet refrained from enlightening him further and instead chose to have his thoughts remain unspoken.

As much as he needed answers to what was happening, the Spartan also remained silent and endured. He would wait for it to pass...and for when he could make sense of it later.

He wasn't sure if to wait was the wisest thing for him to do...

In the morning he was sure to find out-but was it going to be for the better...?

 

-O-

 

 


	5. Through It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
> I've now played the first four missions of Halo 5 and was floored by the lack of discipline and focus-that 343 had initialy graced the Master Chief (and should've Blue Team) with, and then how they turned around on all that 'human progress' by tearing out his heart-his soul-and replacing that man with the 'Mr. Tough Guy/No feelings and Bad attitude' Chief, similiar to Halos 1-3...
> 
> I am going to continue to represent John from Halo 4 in all his humanity and anguish, and any characters that follow will continue in that soulful and heartfelt tone and presence.

 

 

 

-O-

 

A shrill chime sounded, immediatly awakening Locke from his sleep before the appearance of Roland, the voice of Infinity's AI,  suddenly materielized. Briefly confused, Locke sat up with crisp attention.

Because the AI looked anxious. "Agent Locke, you are called to Block 319 at once. Somthing's going on with 117."

Locke stood immediatly, crossing the room to his moniter, bringing up the moniter's feed to try to see for himself; all presence of sleep gone.

"What happened?" He pressed-and found there was no feed to recall, only spastic static and white noise.

"Unknown, Agent, he just..."

Locke looked directly at Roland. The AI's hesitation ignited his imagination but he remained clear headed and calm.

"Tell me."

"He..." Roland shifted as if he really didnt know what to think or didn't know how quite to say it. In the end he just blurted.

"..An unknown pulse killed the bioreaders and the feeds burst into static. Then he.(sigh) All we have left is audio and...He _screamed_ , sir."

Locke didn't wait for anything else. He was out of his quarters and headed right to S deck, Roland following and babbling about bio stats and negative readings even while he entered the mech and doned his armor. Taking the tram lift, he punched in block 319 then addressed the AI.

"Talk to me. What happened before all that?"

Roland sighed.

"It's..he was sleeping--tossing and turning--I mean he looked as if he was in duress but, I mean he's been like that the last 122 hours..."

"Roland."

The AI explained from the yop, frazzled with all the excitment. "After 0400 hours had passed and his condition seemed to get worse, I contacted the Admiral for clearer instructions-because we should do somthing; maybe even freeze him in cryo-but she wanted me to moniter him for another hour and give her quarter hour updates-"

Disapointment and worry thickened the density of Locke's brow as he listened to things just going from bad to worse. _I should of been there_ uncomfortable guilt in his thoughts as he continued listening to the AI babble on.

"--him out, if it became too much. But she insisted we moniter only--" He noticed Locke's look."Now I told her that may not be the best idea-"

"Condense it, Roland."

"Okay sorry, anyways, we were trying to figure out what to do about his elavated readings when he..woke up.." He sighed again. "Sir, you're just going to have to see him for yourself..."

Locke settled on his feet for the rest of the ride."Thats exactly what I'm going to do."

 

-O-

 

The instant Locke arrived, he knew for a fact that somthing was wrong.

The Spartan-John- was standing, facing his direction with his head boring twin holes into the shielded floor. His neck and shoulders were held in violent suspense, his pale skin almost transluscent with the blue of his viens visibley raised and beads of cold sweat creeping down the sharp curve of his jaw and dissapeared into the strangling collar of his suit. His breaths were so slow and expanded so deeply it looked as if he were forcing them to expand and contract against the very law of physics; breath forcing in and out of an iron clenched abdomen, the agent could almost see the white of panic in those cyan blue irises.

Locke felt the comm buzz in his ear but decidedly ignored it.

_What the hell had happened to him?_

Locke stepped carefully into the Chief's confinement, the sound of his armored boot sentencing him to a new unknown. No change come over the Spartan who was standing within, which was not as if it wasn't normal. Not very often did he acknowledge his presence but the fact was he didnt even seem to realize he was there sickened him with worry. Till he spoke.

"John?"

Immediatly John's focus snapped to his with ferel attention. His silent eyes glazed with shock and pain, struggling with the aftereffects of what Locke had missed, but boreing straight into the agent's brain. The Spartan's body was siezed in preparation to face what he didnt even seem to truly see, as the agent now noticed how his eyes glareing on past everything into a sort of blind man's daze; lost in the world of his mind and struggling to force himself to surface.

Three long minuetes of frozen, sufficating silence passed as the air choked to death between them before Locke risked opening his mouth to-

Just then his earpiece 'snapped' to life and Admiral Osman's voice intoned a grim and watching whisper. _"Agent. You do not engage. You let this pass."_

He heard but did not respond to her. The Chief could be tipped off with a simple movement he might make, though his voice could be just as voilitile if he chose to pierced the fragile vale to John's world.  Except he was now in this situation, and how he chose to handle it was ultimatly in his power. She would just have to watch how this one played out.

Locke looked deeply, making out the crawling viens and muscles that were raised and stretched now, new under John's taut facial and neck skin. The agent was fixed on wondering what the rest looked like-when the exSpartan's lips fluttered just barely in a whisper, his breath a harsh rasp.

"...she knew everything..."

Locke locked eyes again but was silent. Listening.

"Cortana. She was always there." His voice a pale breath above a whisper. "She was the only one that..." His body trembled and his breath caught as another wave of change took him-his continence remained cast in iron but the soul inside his eyes was screaming desparately in silence.

Locke chanced and took a single-careful- step forward, torn between his sympathy and his better judgment, nodding in understanding as his eyes connecting with the lost Spartan's. He could feel his gaze was holding John upright as much as the Spartan's own feet were. Even as they were quaking with his body's new torments. Locke spoke sofly in a gentle defense, as dangerous as that was, all the while hoping for the best-and risked the worst.

"Maybe its what she knew that drove her to what she thought was right, John-"

"-No. It." his voice stalled out, touching on a note deeper then Locke had yet heard. "It wasn't. It was.." His was having such difficulty speaking.."..because..she _knew_."

His words were forced and harshly broken, he was desparately trying to convince anyone to understand him, trying to comunicate his wrenching, morphing thoughts from the guilt and the emotion that was drowning him. Locke watched Chief's eyes flicker from confusion and betrayal into anguish...then somthing just short of hate before they squeezed shut; tremors wracking him again.

 

In so short a time knowing him, Locke truly felt he was the only one who understood him now...now that he had no one else. His soul had bared and poured from his eyes into the agent's very own and in that moment he knew John _needed_  someone. He was trying to fit the bill.

Whether he knew that or not, he _knew_ John simply couldn't find words to express that need-as if he could even come to the chance to come to that realazation-as it was he could hardly even draw breath. Locke moved forward on ingrained instinct just as John's teeth suddenly bared and in a surge that Locke audibly heard, John's muscles spasmed and tore, their transformation causing the Chief to lurch upward towards the shielding overhead, the instinct to escape pain too great to fight, and frozen in motion. He silently quavered as the next shape took violent form, breath trapped again in horrid suspense.

The room outside the cell had been thronging with curious or genuenly concerned observers had been forcbily evacuated and now stood empty. Locke-so fixed on the spartan before him-hadnt even noticed before now, his own instinct, his own awareness and attention to what was all around him, to warn any near to back up or get away should there be danger-was ignored and forgotten. It should have been his first thought but he hadn't even given them a thought. Such concentration inexcusable...

Or was John the only excusible excuse?

The spartan's bones cracked loudly, the sound sickening Locke sick inside. He was compelled to come a half step closer for John as the Spartan lurched up and away again, a keen gutting his throat but remaining behind iron jaws; trying to escape the pain inside. Another seething crunch later and John's outstretched arm snapped outward to catch him against the adjecent wall as his legs strained at full extention; oh how they shook-almost giving way beneath him. Locke could hear Osman's voice calling him back even as he watched shades of colors washed over his face; reds, whites and darkening blues around his eyes and throut. The eyes dialated sharply, his throat leaping in a sudden struggled breath-at last- which immediatly choked on a swallow. The tone of his breath touched another note deeper and his utterly exhausted sigh shadowed a growl in it's desparation...

He no longer seemed aware that Locke was standing there helpless to help him..

 

_"Agent. Advise. What do we do?"_

Locke's thoughts were whirling in assesment to their options, pitying John whose eyes were tethered to the throbbing floor beneath them; his breath straining in hollow rasps. Taking another- _cautious_ -step towards him, Locke breathed an answer. "We do nothing."

_"What?"_

"I said nothing, Admiral." He was whispering by default, he didn't want to set him off.. "You try to pull him outta this before he understands whats happening outside his head-and he's going to take this place apart..."

He didnt even bother to think about what could happen to himself in such a situation. He deeply studied John's downturned face as he softly spoke and when a ragged inhale raised the Spartan's head again, he connected eyes..and held his gaze.

His voice was for Osman but his eyes-his soul-were for the Chief. He needed him.

_"Agent-"_

"-Just let him struggle through this. Let me help him-"

_"Locke-"_

"-Osman, please."

 

That name snapped life into those desparate blue eyes and they crystalized into shards that Locke froze in midsentence. And in these next few moments he would finally was able to recognize the _change_ that HAD happened to him.

 

John's gridlocked breath finally sucked like a space vaccuum and the air that penetrated his lungs and rushed into his arteries struck a glint of shining white in those dead, shocked eyes of his. He fixed his now riveting attention on the invader of his cell, fists pulling themselves agians his thighs, clenching with new stregth-and a focus for all his misunderstood rage and agony. Braced and ready for what the agent would do or say next.

Locke feared he may have done just what he had so carefully been tryed not to. John growled a breath, choosing to not wait and taking an aching step towards him- caused Locke took an careful step back, his hand outstretching.

"John. Please listen to me." But he retreated slowly, one resoponse at a time. "I'm not the enemy."

The silent spartan moved like an granite monument; solid and unmovable, using his body-even in his state-to pressure Locke step by step backward,  carefully cornering him into the threshold of the entrance, putting Locke between any other agressers or offenders that may try to interfere. He was wounde tighter then a space seal and two words too many or the wrong answer entirely were what stood between the Agent and the full force of 117's destructive capabilities. As familiar as he was with what that personally intailed and considering what that could mean _now-_ meant as the universe's greatest understatment; Locke was going to be _very careful_.

The voids of John's eyes dared him to speak but Locke chose to speak with his eye contact and body language, pouring himself into those eyes even as the spartan had been moments before. Locke's shoulders were relaxed without form or planning, he would make no move to protect himself should 117 choose to attack. But he had to hope, and to not fear. He heard John groan from another tremor again, trying to keep silent the horrid anguish of his 'changes'...but..

He heard him _inside_ his head as well as outside..

_Why are you here?_ John's thought voice was haunting and hurt as it resounded inside him _._

He was speaking into his mind...

 

Locke's mouth parted in silent wonder but his disapline overrode any wayward thoughts-since he may be able to feel anything of his-he would not have them condemn him now.

_'_ Locke answered haltingly. _'..I ..came here because I heard..what was happening to you. I want to help.'_

_Help what?_ John's focus pierced Locke inside and he could literally feel his burning pain and iron intentions as if they were his own. Was this an ability of his new changes?

_I came to help you, John._ He answered truthfully.

_How can you help me? Why makes you want to?_   Locke felt John's inner most feelings; meshing like fiber netting and throbbing inside him as his body spasmed again. He heard him growl again, with his own outer senses and his contact within.

John's voice cut in again. _What are you getting from it?_

So Locke cut to the core. _Tell me. Tell me why._

John's anger flared again, mingled with a confusion he buried, striking back. _Just leave me alone, goddamnit._

_No. You aren't going to run away again._

Hot anger boiled between them before it cooled into a crystal cold that bordered along disgust. How dare he accuse him-but he had. He wanted John to face this, and to do that he had to get inside.

John's silence went long enough to worry him, except that it wasn't a deliberate silence but one that was at a lose at how to respond. So the Spartan just stated simply. _Get out._

Locke stood firm. _I'm not going anywhere._

John seethed, confusion and frustration rising above the roiling anger-

_"Locke. What are you doing?"_ Osman's voice cut into his thoughts abruptly.

John's attention snagged at the flicker of thought before Locke was even able to comprehend the exchange, and then still drown in the world of their thoughts Locke felt a bruising crush/slam against his back that snapped his eyes back open. He hadnt even realized he had closed them...

Flashes of light dotted the outside of his perriphreal as his entire spine and skull ached from some sort of concuscian then felt a large crushing hand on his throat-it clamped down so hard he wasnt able to exhale his half held breath. He clamped his armored hands around the Chief's arms crossed over him reflexivly but even then he was too slow and too unmatched. He felt the newly mutated flesh only flex beneath his vice grip. He bucked once, panic sparking before he crushed it down again.

"Why are you HERE-." John's voice rang throughout the chamber with his emphatic demand, an answer not to be denied him again.

The foriegn hand's crushing grip suddenly released enough to inspire one to answer immediatly. Locke played the part after he gulped as large a breath as he could, heart hammering from the situation but not in fear. "T..help..you-"

"Help me WHAT?" Crushing throb again before it realeased again.

"(gargling gasp)To-ffind-yo..rself-(trying not to struggle or react)-fffind..out..whatss...happening-"

(crush again)"-What _is_ happening, Jamesson?" (crush tightens impossibly-)) "What are you people _doing to me_??"

Locke couldn't resist grappling with those hands now, wildly prying at them with a desperation he had never known. (the grip loosened enough that he barked) "We..arent..doing.this-!"

" _Bullshit-_ "

"-This-is beyond us-!"(Spasming. Crushing armour non effective against the Chief's _flesh_ arms..)"-and..you-know it-"

John crushed Locke backward again, leaning all his wieght against him, using his body to crush Locke against the wall. Not realizing how he was doing this with no armor to speak of against an agent armed in Mark 6. Was he aware of the injuries he could retain?

John didn't seem to notice, continuing unabated.  "-You have _no idea_ what _they_ are capable of-and that what you are doing for them is _wrong_.."

Locke felt his throat open a little when the strength of the hand failed for a moment, and the dotted blur encircling his vision eased. _One more time. Just once more-and I can get him._

He tryed for conviction, using John's minor distraction to place his booted feet into form. Bracing before speaking. "(explosive cough)I-do...Just..like..you did..not-not even..a..year ago."

The hand strangled him again, shutting him up. "Dont **talk** to me as if you **know** me-"

But Locke had enough air and had regained his strength and mind to ready a countermeasure, interrupting him to provoke action. "I do, John.."

" ** _Stop_ it**-" but was cut off with a visual bolt of pain that shot through up from his developing spine into his eyes sockets, and shoved Locke again but not with half the force as he had last, releasing him to totter heavily away. Locke's legs folded, his great wieght coming to recover as he leaned upon the floor for both relief and to assume an nonhostel appearance. Watching the Spartan hold his head, mouth yawning in a wail of such interior magnatude that no sound came forth again.

Locke pushed himself upward, Osman choosing to break her silence. _"Agent, abort. Do **not** engage the Chief."_   But he strode forward to the Chief's clutching form and took hold of the mighty shoulders, they were oblivious to him and so he pushed the Spartan backward, only the slightest resistance given; the interiorization of John's focus was a chance for Locke to achieve somthing. Only pushing for a step at a time, he steered the Spartan towards his sleep block; a solid frameless bed designed for infirmery bound Spartans that he had used all too infrequently.

John's breath was so soft and long drawn, like as if his lungs were full of glass shards. Locke leaned his wieght now into John's, trying to ease him to sit down, finally met resistance.

"No." Was all John managed to whisper, bracing his body like a Titanium enforced Mantis. But as he expected Locke to just drive him over, Locke just stood himself close to him, holding him like any soldier holds a wounded brother.

Locke's voice was all reason, his pitch jumping at times because of the profound swelling in his blackened bruised throat. He swallowed hard, answering. "You're going to fall, John when the next one shows up. If you at least sit, you'll be able to better get a grip on this. On the pain." He watched his face carefully, taking in the details of the eyes defocusing, breath slowing forcibly, the tendons jumping in his neck, the veins across his brow already burst and bluing the pallid skin around them. He was no longer sweating, the skin dry and hot with a fever past dangerous and yet the man reamained upright, coherent and **_still_** even ready to fight if he had to. What in god's name was this poor soul made out of...?

John had no arguement, nothing to voice however. His only answer was for another spell to enrapture him and for those dead blue eyes tugging closed, tears to seep from the deep sockets; so sunken with exhaustion. The agent leaned into him again, using John's resistance as momentum to cause him to give--or lose balance-and so brought him to rest against the bed. John gasped at the position, lurching upright and against Locke's chest but the agent blocked him so that he fell back again. Locke's remained there to keep him, single knee on the bed beside him, armored hands still holding his shoulders down firmly.

"You are going to stand down and listen to me. Understand, soldier?" John lurched up against Locke again but he pressed him plat again, leaning his wieght onto 117 more firmly."You are going to listen-then talk." He commanded him with his presense and his assertion of doninating position, and was going to have him watch and listen. 

And so John chose to remain there, still but not defeated, beaten but not broken; and the agent understood. So they stayed-staring into each other's eyes, both close enough that the air between them took on the scent of their skin and breath; warm and sheltering.

Locke saw the fear in his soul, the fear of every man who falls apart to the point where they don't even know where to begin with picking up the fallout. A vacuum, a blackhole collapsing in on itself, evens that couldnot be remedied and often ended with a Magnum to the temple. Now this was not going to be the case, not in his power, but he could see the selfdestructing need for any form of assistance, and knowing just as well that the Chief would rather die then ask for it. Like two opposing ends of a magnet was just as strong was the desparation of understanding friend from foe.

But he was silent again, leaning as much away from the agent's gaze and touch as he was into it. Locke heard his whispered voice again in his mind, and felt the hatred he felt for the agent after all that he had done to him and his team.

_You can't fix this._ He could feel the black of pain and exhaustion slipping over the Spartan's vision.

Locke squeezed the shoulders in reasurance. _Never say never, John._

_You can't._

_I will._

 

-O-

 

"So-hows that tin can head coming along?" Buck had sauntered up to Locke later, looking a little less speculativly negative then usual. _Musta slept well,_ he was thinking as the asshat Spartan continued. "Cant imagine its coming along easy or anything..."

And Locke might have been amused if it wasnt so serious as it was.

"He collapsed."

"What? Gee-"

"He's conscience...its just that.."

"Just what? Come'on."

Locke saw again he had all but held the Spartan had how he just couldn't take the last surge. His vitals had scrawled free of any measure and then he had fallen against him... Dead, except for a heartbeat and a pulse. Now he was in somthing akin to a coma, save his eyes that had remained open and fleeting.

"He's just not here anymore." Locke let a service man pass between them before shaking his head. "He's stuck somwhere in his head, somewheres deep. And as much as it means we are now free to move him somewheres.." He searched for the right words but Buck intercepted, trying to supply his loss.

"-but the fact that that has never happened to someone with his reputation you're worried we mighta pushed somthing?"

Locke nodded. "I'm worried about him."

"Yeah, well he wouldn't give a damn if it was you so just cool it GoldieLocks, okay? I mean I know what this whole thing means to you but in the end it's his fault what happens to him. If you ask me, he's the one holding the gun to his head. I mean-damn-am I the only one-"

"-no your not, Sergeant."

"Well then, why does it always feel that way?"

Locke didn't know, he just knew that Buck was too direct to understand the complications of such a dilemna.

"Oh, right. I get it. It's because I'm not a spook, right?" Buck was at his bullshit again, but Locke was too tired for it. And after he had visited the infirmery to receive some swelling stabilization, he was heading to give Osman a briefing. This day wasn't even half gone and it was already too long.

"Look, Buck-" Locke began.

"No, no-" Buck interrupted with raised hands. "I spoke outta line, I'm sorry." He waved Locke off dismissivly. "You go finish up what you got going, I understand. I was just mad as hell when I heard you went in there with only your balls for padding."

Locke shook his head. "He had me against that wall in full armor." As if that were his defense.

"Look you want me to punch your lip for being so bull headed and stupid? Geez-" Buck turned away and headed up the way they had came. "I'm just walking away before I feel too tempted to assault a Leutenant Commander and get court martialed and shit.."

Locke sighed, the gunnery sergeant making more simple sense then he should, regardless the fact that he didn't know what had happened, at least not details. His mind was ruled by quick, clear judgement and conviction, not hindered by the binding and often conflicting order that collectivly was ONI command.

Entering the elevator, Locke had made it to S deck when it abruptly stopped. Before he could question, Roland appeared again looking a little nervous.

"What is it Roland?"

"Sir, The Admiral requests you appear out of armor." He leans from foot to foot, posture appologetic.

"Any reason?"

"None given, agent. She made it clear enough though I didn't ask why."

"Oh I understand. Thank you."

The golden A.I. saluted smartly, gratfully dissappearing into the hologram pedestal again.

Locke composed himself with a number of measured breaths before proceeding to comply. The new order wasn't strange but the message it implied was somthing much more. The iron arms wrapping and unwrapping around him, feeling the warm weight lift free, left him cool and a little uneasy, wondering what more had he might have brought on his head.

 

-O-


	6. The War That I Wage

 

 

-O-

 

Osman sat straightbacked as a Pelican landing strut, the cold cast of her features plainly containing her displeasure. That was until Locke had entered and sealed the door closed behind him, coming to attention before her and smartly saluting as if he hadn't disobeyed orders like had just had.

 

But he had. He understood the rules he had broke and what he now faced. So standing tall and proud, he spoke first. "Admiral, I did what was be-"

"-ONI is vulnerable now. Malliable. And that is just what the council needed. Well done, Locke." Her pokerface was cold as cryfrozen steel.

"Ma'am?" Locke's brows had fallen. Disarmed and confused by her praise, he had been expecting somthing entirely different.

"I said well done. 117 is currantly undergoing resituation in Med block. His vitals are stable enough for his first fusion session, and then they'll place him into a selective cryogenic hybernation chamber. He'll be underwater but not brain dead. Which is perfect for what we need.."

She had Roland pull up Med block room 313 video footage that comfirmed what she had just said. Locke resisted leaning in for a closer look, instead keeping his disaproval to himself.

"That so, Agent there will be nolonger be an active need for you. Unless 117 experiences another episode, in which case you will be promply called to respond. Untill then you are reassigned to observe shift and block watch rotation. If I have a further assignment, you will be notified."

Locke took this all with a cool calm, he learned as an ONI Agent to take nothing personaly. Even if it was a personal blow, if you didn't take it that way, you would have a clearer head to think and to act with.

He nods. "Very good ma'am."

"You're dismissed."

 

-O-

 

He could not deny the unease settleing in his gut, having now no authority over 117's fate. Unless called, that is. And what could they possibly be planning?

 

Osmon's words were bearing down on his mind like a brooding thunderhead and his brow was dark with wonder and worry. The heavy undertones of "Do nothing unless asked, ask nothing. Do only as told." threaded through his mind like a sick poison. And the woman demanding this of him gave him no objective to replace the one with which had become his life mission.

To say he was a bit lost was to under evaluate his predicament.

 

And so Locke found himself back on S deck, standing above the tangle of training spartans below and trying to adjust to his "new" assignment. And also to decide which suspician he wanted to address first-- 

 

1\. Was what they were planning going to be for a full scale humanitarian effort? Was the secret to 117's survival meant to be shared in order to ensure the survival of humanity in its entirity or was it only meant for those who now held the power to decide? If Cortana came back with the force of destruction she had promised and if she truly meant to destroy every living thing then these means justified themselves. That is if they were in truth going to be shared.

2\. 117 was torn between demons inside. His fellow soldier, and in his heart Locke admired him in an almost exhalted sense for all he had accomplished, was quickly losing the last of his humanity to some alien technology inside. What was happening to him was inhuman, how they were treating him was inhuman--but in the face of a single man's worth vs the worth of what he could give to the whole of human kind, was that even a moral worth debating?

And last 3. Because of these interior conflicts, Locke knew that Osmon was keeping an eye on him and at a seconds notice he himself could become a wanted man. She didn't want argument and she didn't want objection. She wanted stalewort obedience and dependablity, as he now discovered that her neck was on the line for all the shit that had come down in her name. The Chief's defecting being #1 on her head.

 

Watching the rookies and the veteran spartans clashing it out below only fed his need to act. His eyes fell upon man and woman as against holograms and live training excercises they seemed overshadowed with the shipwide aura of anticipation. The maintainence men all whispered of what was coming, what if prometheans attacked the ship again, what if the covenant discovered another weapon, what if there was a mutiny among the surviving Blue team that awaited their judgment down in confinment and lastly what if all spartans would go 'coo-coo' eventually? The popular belief was growing that they all had an expiration date to their sanity, as if they were a canned food. That thought alone curled the insides of Locke till he was sick.

 

Since when did humanity degrade themselves into a species without compassion? As intelligent as humanity claimes to be, intelligence and understanding is cast aside for the easier and cruelest of man's capacities: disregard and indifference.

 

With a long sigh Locke fought the urge to dwell, instead leaving that thought lie where it was cut and instead come back to--

 

_"Sir?"_

 

Looking to the electronic voice, Locke nodded to the orange holograph of the ship's AI. "Roland. What do you need?'

 

 _"Excuse me for being blunt but I need to have a word with you."_ His expression fizzed with every other word but he looked serious. 

 

"Certainly." He answered cooly "Where?"

 

 _"Just take my chip."_ He points at the pedestal beneath him. When Locke was going to protest about the conspicuousness of this conversation possibly being monitered the AI interupts. _"I fizzed them, hence the static. Now com'on._ "

 

Only a momentary hesitation paused his hand, a quick look about while he worried over this being the very act that could label him an enemy of ONI--but there was more here then just ONI to worry about, he just had a gut feeling-- so he leaned casually over and with an easy gesture slipped the card out into his closed palm. Pacing away from the overhead balcony of S deck, he takes one more look for eyes that may witness this before slipping the chip into the slot below his hairline and with a soft pop between the connection, Roland's voice began to talk softly.

 

"I know you're worried about 117 but theres more going on-- he's being kept as ransom--they are going to use him to bargain with Cortana, they want to make a deal with her but thats for AFTER they get what they want from him. Osmon and her goons were speaking together in a closed room meeting--I only got parts of it.."

 

'What..' Lock couldn't believe it.

 

Roland continues. "They've been trying to control 117's evolutionary growth, to see if it can be placed in recession and then stimulated again but so far they are unsuccessful. They can't halt his biological progression--which is off the charts-- and he's deteriorating.. His mind, sir, theres not gonna be much left of him once he wakes up if they keep at him like this. They've sealed him into stasis as of 0423 last night while they process his dna--blood, tissue-- everything! They want to experiment on humanity's evolution INTO Forerunners!! It's insane!"

 

Here Locke finally had enough.

 

~

 

 

 

_'Awaken, warrior! In your pathetic might lies unawares, even as you are harrowed on all sides, sapped of strength. Hear me! Awaken!'_

 

The crystaled frost had deep frozen itself into the apparent corpse that whole flight decks once saluted. Once called "Humanity's Hero". The Didact bellors into the cold, empty mind of the Spartan, to stimulate his conscious but it is as if he is were already dead.

 

The Forerunner growls, his present conscience turns about and thrusts his own awareness through the abondoned senses of the Spartan, sparking a new life in his veins momentarily to gauge what will was left to salvage. 'If YOU will give up then I will make mighty use of you.' He extends his superiour mind deep, tying his control to the outer senses. This would never have worked had the Spartan not been imprinted, and save for his hatred for the Librarian, for this act of betrayal he was most grateful.

 

 

 

 


End file.
